‘Who?’
‘Michael Nell. He was a client of yours. He took these.’ He handed over the photos. She took them, opened the envelope. Flicked through them.
‘I remember him.’ She sketched a ghost of a smile. ‘I come out well, haven’t I?’
Donovan had looked at the photos of Sharon Healy, naked and bound, humiliated and hurt. ‘Well’ wouldn’t have been the word he would have used.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Really good. He’s captured something there.’
‘Ee, he’s talented, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, yeah. He’s talented. Can we come in, please?’
Sharon Healy looked at him. Caught what was going on behind his eyes. ‘You don’t like these photos, do you? Not into it. Wonder how I can do it. What I get out of it. Besides money, that is.’
Donovan could feel his cheeks reddening.
Sharon’s face changed. A kind of sick power floated behind her eyes. She almost smiled. ‘And you’ll never know.’
She opened the door, let them in. The room was as depressing and bare as the rest of the house. S&M concessions had been made: tools of the trade hanging from B&Q picture hooks on the walls. A paddle. A whip. A restraint. On the bedside table a couple of vibrators and dildos. More for pain than pleasure. In a corner on the floor and out of place next to everything else was an electric kettle plugged into the power point with a plastic bottle of milk, a homely mug and a box of PG Tips next to it. Items sparsely spread out, juxtapositioned. Could have been an art installation.
‘Shouldn’t this be in a dungeon?’ asked Donovan.
‘Cellar got flooded,’ said Sharon with a shrug. ‘Burst pipe. Had to move up here.’
Donovan caught Katya shuddering. Resigned himself to being as quick as possible.
‘So who is he, then, this lad?’ asked Sharon, sitting on the edge of the bed. She seemed stronger, more in control. ‘I thought he was a student.’
‘He is,’ said Donovan. ‘Photography student. He’s been visiting a few —’
Sharon smiled. That look of sick power in her eyes again. ‘Prostitutes. Like me. You can say the word.’
Donovan, not looking at Katya, continued: ‘Yeah. He’s been visiting a few prostitutes in the city. Taking photos. Doing what he does. He says he was with you two weeks last Tuesday. Here, taking those photos.’
‘Two weeks?’
‘The seventh.’
Sharon shrugged. ‘He mighta been. I’m here every night. It coulda been that one. I don’t know. I don’t give receipts.’ She looked up from the photos, studied Donovan. ‘You’re not a copper.’
‘No.’
Sharon pointed to Katya. ‘And you’re definitely not.’
Katya shook her head.
Sharon kept her eyes on Katya a beat too long, then turned back to Donovan. ‘So what’s he done?’
‘He’s being questioned in connection with a murder.’
‘Murder?’ Sharon dropped the photos like they were hot, threw up her arms. Her robe fell open, sleeves rode up. Donovan saw the scars on her forearms. Cuts. Some old. Some not so old. The bruises on the tops of her breasts. Small circular burns. New on old. He tried to ignore them, concentrate his words on her face.
‘And you’re his alibi,’ he said. ‘Have the police contacted you yet?’
She shook her head.
‘They will.’
She sighed. ‘God. Just what I need.’
‘But you can’t remember.’
She shook her head. ‘Let’s think.’
She put her head back. Donovan saw crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, a neck developing rings and turkey folds. She was older than she first appeared. Or the job had aged her.
‘I think it was Tuesday, you know.’ She nodded. ‘Uh-huh. It was. I know because of the other punters I saw that night. Some of me regulars.’ She looked at Donovan. ‘Do I have to prove it? Tell you their names?’
‘It may not come to that. But I do need to know that you would be willing to testify to that in court.’
Sharon almost smiled. ‘You gonna pay me?’
‘You know I can’t.’
‘Why would I do it, then?’
‘Out of the goodness of your heart.’
‘Prossies don’t make the best witnesses.’
‘They do if that’s all the defence has.’
Sharon seemed to be thinking to herself.
‘And they wouldn’t, y’know, try to prosecute us?’
‘They wouldn’t.’
She smiled. ‘That would be a laugh.’
‘Thank you.’ He turned to Katya, gave her a smile. She looked relieved not have been asked to take part. She returned the smile. ‘That’s all we needed to know. We’ll be off.’
Sharon held up the photos. ‘Can I keep these?’
‘Sorry. I need them back. Evidence.’
‘Can I get a copy? These are good.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘He wanted to photograph us again, you know.’
‘Really?’ said Donovan.
She nodded. ‘Said he had a studio in town he wanted to take me to. Fully equipped, he said.’
‘Well,’ said Donovan, ‘I don’t think he’ll be doing that now.’
Donovan picked up the photos. Made arrangements about contacting her, organizing a formal statement. She gave him her mobile number. He gave her his business card. He headed for the door. He turned, about to thank Sharon for her time when his mobile rang. He answered it. Jamal.
‘Joe? Two people comin’ from a parked car way down the street. Movin’ quickly. Headed for you.’
‘We’re coming.’ Jamal started to say something more, but Donovan cut him off, pocketed the phone. He turned to Katya. ‘We’ve got to go.’
Fear sprang into Katya’s eyes.
‘Don’t worry.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘Come on.’
‘Wait.’
Sharon put her hand on Katya’s shoulder. Grabbed her. Katya spun round.
‘I know you.’
Katya froze. She looked from Donovan to Sharon, not knowing what to say, what to do.
‘I know you. You used to work here, didn’t you?’ She couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice. ‘I’ve been rackin’ my brains. I remember you. Foreign girl. What you doin’ with him?’
Katya opened her mouth to speak; no sound came out.
‘Come on!’
Donovan grabbed her, made for the stairs. They ran down them almost together, ran down the hall towards the front door. Noddy was standing at the bottom, trying to say something. Donovan ignored him. They reached the front door, Donovan stretched out a hand to open it. There was a knock.
Donovan stopped, looked at Katya.
Another knock.
Donovan spun around. ‘Is there a back way out?’
Noddy just looked at him.
‘Is there a fucking back way out?’
Noddy pointed to the back of the house.
Another knock.
‘Come on.’ Donovan turned, ready to go.
Another knock. And the sound of a voice.
‘Donovan? Joe Donovan?’
A voice addressing him. He thought he recognized it.
Donovan snatched a look at Katya. Shook his head. She frowned at him. He sighed and, with great reluctance, opened the door.
‘What d’you want?’ he said.
There stood DI Diane Nattrass and DS Paul Turnbull. It was hard to tell which one looked the least happy to see him. Turnbull spoke first.
‘You’re fucked,’ he said.
14
The Discovery Museum on Blandford Street was dedicated to the social history of the north-east. Housed in the old Co-operative Wholesale Society for the Northern Region, all Victorian red-brick, metalwork and turrets, it was the north-east’s biggest free museum and told the story of Newcastle from Roman times to the present day.
Past the Turbina, once the fastest ship in the world, a series of atmospherica
lly lit mazes led viewers through history. To the schoolchildren who trekked through it, the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s could have been as distant as the eighteenth century or the Middle Ages. Their guides tried to enthuse and contextualize, put the displays in relation to the children’s own lives and histories and families, claim them as living history, since there were artefacts behind glass many people still had in their homes. The children looked and listened but laughed at the things their parents had thought of as cool. Like all teenagers, they believed themselves to be the first generation – the only generation – to have been born at ground zero. They wouldn’t make the same mistakes as their parents. They wouldn’t end up like them.
The Historian hurried past the displays. He had expected on his first visit to stand before the displays and experience the past all around him, see into it, talk with those long departed. But nothing had come. With their faux history, taped sounds and shop-window dummies miming action, for ever stuck in the same position, frozen in time, the displays held nothing for him. They were dead. Instead of bringing the past to life, they had killed it and displayed its empty husk, ignoring the ghosts of the dead that informed the present. Silencing their voice. The teenagers and the museum’s creators were well suited. None of them understood the truth about history.
He hurried past them, on his way to his destination.
Through the double doors, turning left. The brightly lit, highly coloured twenty-first-century surroundings disappeared, to be replaced by a sombre reception area, resplendent in dark wooden panelling and opaque glass. He rounded the reception and walked down a long, straight corridor, again in dark wooden panelling, with doors at either side displaying various permutations of non-admittance stencilled on the half-obscured glass.
He slowed down, enjoying the cool feel of the place, the soundproofed walls, the carpet beneath his feet. This was better. This worked for him. With every step he took, he felt like he was walking back in time to some government offices from fifty or sixty years ago. He could hear the faint noises of big old typewriters working away behind each door as he passed, the rattling clatter of the keys, the ping of the bell, and the trilling of Bakelite phones. He could hear voices.
But then he could always hear voices.
Ghost meetings. Ghost conferences. Ghost planning committees.
They were still there. He could still hear them. He smiled. Drew comfort from that.
He reached his destination, a set of double doors at the end of the corridor. He pushed them open, went in.
The Public Record Offices. Smelling of age and must, the tobacco-yellowed walls sporting the odd council poster or genealogy group meeting, the staff by and large silent and unsmiling. Card indexes, boxed paper files, huge leather-bound books, microfilm readers. The past compartmentalized, filed away. The usual souls he always saw in there, working the microfilm and peering through old census files: odd folk in anoraks, sloganed sweatshirts and fleeces, both male and female, most of them past retirement age, all of them in some way driven to discover something. Desperate to dig up the past, make it, in some way, live again.
He checked his watch, looked around. He was later than usual. Would get only an hour or so of work done before they closed the place for the night.
He found his usual seat, sat down, began unloading from his old sports bag. Then sat still, head cocked to one side. Waiting.
For how long he didn’t know. He focused, tuned in. And they came. Rising from the graves of the card indexes, clouding out of leather-bound, yellowed newspapers, uncurling from boxes of paper files, unspooling from rolls of microfilm. The voices. The ghosts.
He listened, smiled. Nodded. Their conduit, their medium. Their instrument.
At first he had thought they were in his head, a direct result of not taking his medication. But the more they spoke to him, the things they said and showed him, the truths they revealed to him, he knew they were more than that.
They directed him to plans, diagrams.
They gave him his room.
He had been thrilled when he had found it and set about changing it, making it his. The walls no longer bare, cold brick, the stone flags of the floor developing a covering. The decorative figurework. The lights. All his own. His workplace, but more than that: his studio, his sanctuary, his sanctum. Where he felt at home, where he belonged.
And the voices talked to him, asked him questions. The same ones he had been asking himself, that had been haunting him, depressing him. They would help him, they said. Show him how to find those answers he so desperately craved.
The work had consumed him. Even the initial try-outs. The failures. The planning and anticipation giving almost as delicious a thrill as the act itself. Almost. Because nothing could match the consummation. Nothing ever would.
He had needed that after his mother’s death. He wished, not for the first time, that she were still with him. He had to see her again. And he would see her again.
Soon.
He got up from his seat, found the maps he was looking for, spread them out on the desk before him.
The city of Newcastle, 1789.
He could get lost in them, tracing roads and rivers, mouthing the names as he went. Visualizing the city as it was, finding comfort in what had been before, the contemporary city overlaid on top. The past not gone, only hidden. There to be found. Ghosts walking, guiding him. To the past. The present. And beyond.
His mind wandered. The city’s history became his history. The roads on the map taking him to one street in particular. One house. His house, now. Open the door, and there he was. A boy alone in the shadows of his childhood.
He blinked. Saw the white flashes of anger. Of pain.
Saw his father again.
The smell of alcohol on his breath, the foul words he used. Hitting his mother again and again. Her prayers and hymns ineffectual shields against her husband’s cruelty. He glimpsed it again through barred fingers, curled into a terrified, foetal ball, wishing he had been stronger, stood up to the bully, feeling the guilt still gnaw.
He knew which memory would come next, flinched in anticipation. His father turning his attention on him. A harsh attention. A violent one.
An invasive one.
His barred fingers as effective a shield as his mother’s hymns.
He blinked, looked around the room, trying to dislodge the memory. Everyone was staring at him. Had he shouted out loud? Screamed? He might have done. His heart was beating fast, sweat on his face and hands. His fingers over his eyes. He felt his face reddening, looked down again. Tried to will everyone in the room to stop staring at him. Concentrated on the map before him. It was blurred. He waited to refocus. The image to change.
Another flash. Now ten years old, the young man of the house, sitting on his mother’s knee. A cuddle that gripped too tight. Kisses that went on too long. Hands all over him, making him feel good. His mother telling him God wouldn’t mind. Telling him about love. Him telling his mother she didn’t need God. Or Jesus. He would protect her.
Then later, just the two of them. No more kissing and cuddling. God had decided it wasn’t right, she had said. But he still loved her.
Even when MS struck and life changed. She couldn’t run the shop any more. Couldn’t sew or do her embroidery and cross-stitch that she loved so much. He had been planning to go to university. That was out of the question. The money saved had to go towards living expenses. He had to stay at home and help her cope. He looked after her. They coped. He still loved her.
The house became filled with protuberances. Beige and white and metal. Clinical. Things to help her get from one place to another and back again. Things to stop her going outside.
She still prayed. Sang hymns. God did everything for a purpose, and she was going to a better place. With no pain and only angels.
He bottled everything inside. His needs. His hopes. His worries. His anger. With God and everyone else. And he couldn’t let them out. Because his mother needed him.
But then he found the room. Heard the voices. Met the spirits. Who helped him to unbottle the things inside. Encouraged him. And life improved.
And then she died.
And he was heartbroken.
After the funeral he had retreated to his room. And listened. Sure he would hear her voice, see her face there in the shadows with the rest.
He never did. She wasn’t there.
He searched and searched. Listened and listened. Couldn’t find her. He began to doubt, to fear. He formulated a plan.
He looked up. The library was closing. Everyone packing up, making ready to go home. Giving him sly looks out of the corners of their eyes. He felt his face reddening again and hurried to join them, to slip away. But he wasn’t going home. He was going to his room.
He had to plan.
15
The house was large, even by the standards of the other big houses that populated the exclusive Darras Hall area of Northumberland. Large enough and secluded enough to make dog walkers and neighbours stop, stare, wonder who lived there, what went on that they couldn’t see. It was regarded with envy and suspicion among the locals. Envy, suspicion, and everything in between.
The house stood in its own grounds, gated and walled, entry applied for through the intercom mounted on the stone and brick gatepost, entry granted only after the scrutiny of the cameras and at the discretion of those behind the wall. Inside, the green, expensively sculpted grounds hid motion-sensor alarms and spotlights, CCTV: a private security firm had an on-site base replete with uniforms and attack dogs. It was half-palace, half-fortress.
Marco Kovacs took his security very seriously.
Decca Ainsley drove up in his cobalt black BMW 545 Sport, G Unit: ‘Beg for Mercy’ blaring, 50 Cent explaining how you didn’t want to bang with the best because he’d have the doctor removing fragments from your chest, making Decca feel good. Windscreen wipers thrashing against the downpour. High-wattage beams against the darkness. He screeched to a standing stop by the gatepost, leaned out, pressed the intercom button. Gave his name and drove in, the gates swinging wide to admit him.
The house itself was an old Georgian mansion. Decca heard that it had once been a mental hospital. Figured. Despite the amount of care and, more important, money that had been lavished on it to transform it into a showpiece home, he still felt a shudder when he looked at it, like the ghosts of the mad and disturbed still held claim to the place. He thought that if he turned around quickly he might still catch a glimpse of them staring down from the upstairs windows. The dead watching the living. The fact that it was evening and raining made it even worse.
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